For Joanna - Musings and Meditations

“You are not a separate being. You belong to the living body of Earth. You are the Earth, becoming conscious of itself.”

Joanna Macy (1929-2025)

"If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear. People who can open to the web of life that called us into being."

Joanna Macy

"The most radical thing any of us can do at this time is to be fully present to what is happening in the world."

Joanna Macy

An 8-minute video in which Joanna Macy talks about the Tibetan ‘Shambhala Warrior Prophecy’ and what it has meant to her. Warmly recommended!

Dear friends,

Before I let physicist Frederico Faggin kick off the next series of Musings, as promised in the last post before the break in the blog, I would like to pay a brief tribute to the great Joanna Macy, who passed away on July 19.

Joanna Macy is above all remembered as a voice that connected ecology and activism with wisdom, with a boundless love for life and an equally strong belief in the value and potential of every human being. She was an inexhaustible source of inspiration for anyone who feels called to take action for the Earth, for life, and for a thriving future for future generations and all life with which we share this planet.

If you did not know Joanna yet, you can find information on her website, which is also the first site I refer to on the new page with links on deep ecology. You can also find more about Joanna and her work on the websites of The Work That Reconnects Network and Active Hope.

Joanna Macy was a poet, activist, and author, and held a doctorate in religious studies from Syracuse University. During her doctoral work with the great Ervin László (who has been mentioned several times in the Musings, including in ‘Dancing With the Planet’), she focused on the similarities between Western systems theory and the Buddhist teaching of interconnectedness in causality. Both systems theory and Buddhism would remain important sources of inspiration for her work as an author and activist, and her evolution as a representative of ‘deep ecology’.

Her most important books include ‘World as Lover, World as Self’ and ‘Active Hope’. Central to her work is the inspiration for personal action: even in light of the overwhelming ‘meta-crisis’ we find ourselves in, there is always reason for hope, but that hope does require action. We are all invited to be part of the path to a different future. It is up to us, who else? Joanna therefore constantly connects her insights into systems theory and Buddhism, spirituality and science, mysticism and psychology, with the endless potential in each of us to be part of ‘The Great Turning’, the great transformation that is coming. And as the title of her work ‘World as Lover, World as Self’ suggests, this may require above all that we no longer see ourselves as isolated robots of flesh and blood in a fundamentally alien and indifferent universe, but as one and indivisibly connected to the living being of which we are a part, the Earth.

In Joanna's words:

“You are not a separate being. You belong to the living body of the Earth. You are the Earth becoming conscious of itself.”

In the accompanying video, which dates from 2015, Joanna talks about the Tibetan ‘Shambhala Prophecy’, as told to her in the 1980s by her friend and mentor Dugu Chiel Rimpachi during one of her stays in northern India.

This prophecy became a life-changing inspiration for her. As she succinctly puts it: “I felt like I had just received my marching orders for the rest of my life.”

This prophecy dates back some 12 centuries.

The story is about a time when all life on Earth is in danger, and barbaric forces are investing all their power and technology in weapons to destroy each other (sound familiar?).

Just at this moment, when all life on Earth is hanging by a thread, the kingdom of Shambhala appears. But that kingdom is not a place; it exists in the hearts and minds of the Shambhala Warriors. And who are the Shambhala Warriors? Well, any one of us can be. What is needed is for us to follow our hearts and minds to take action for our planet and for life.

But I will let Joanna Macy tell the story, and invite you to listen to the beautiful voice of this wise visionary and activist, who left us last month.

For more on deep ecology and activism, I would like to refer you once again to the link of the same name in the new menu with links that you will also find at the top of the website menu.

Thank you for reading, and until the next episode.

All the best to you,

Filip

---